


Puzzle Pieces

by Mikazuki_Nika



Series: Playing Games [1]
Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Eventual Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, M/M, Pining, Post-Black Organization Takedown (Meitantei Conan), Post-Conan Kudou Shinichi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:47:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22218787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikazuki_Nika/pseuds/Mikazuki_Nika
Summary: In which Kuroba Kaito and Kudou Shinichi try to force themselves to fit in, then give up trying.
Relationships: Kudou Shinichi | Edogawa Conan/Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid
Series: Playing Games [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1615897
Comments: 26
Kudos: 370





	1. Acceptance

Kuroba Kaito just wants to be accepted.

Years of deliberately making himself a target for his father’s murderers, years of racing them to find a jewel that may or may not exist, years of lying to the people he loves most.

Every heist, the person called “Kuroba Kaito” dies a little more, and Kaitou KID becomes a little more real.

But he won’t stop. He can’t. 

A legacy. What is a legacy?

The answer must be in a suit two sizes too large, and a monocle too big for his face.

Friends that have grown distant. A society that scorns “bad people” like thieves. Fans who love him, but really don’t. Jii-chan’s worried stare. His mother’s cheerful expectations. Aoko’s grumbling.

Nakamori-keibu’s inflamed knee. Old age.

_ How long will I keep running? _

His gentle step onto the rooftop is silent when he floats down into a landing, cape unfurling like white wings behind him, left hand tugging the brim of his hat over his eyes.

“KID.”

A straight, piercing gaze. Tense limbs, furrowed brows, and a treacherous slope down a frown.

“Good evening,” Kaitou KID purrs smoothly, eyes cataloging his guest’s appearance.

Kudou Shinichi returned to Japan just over a year ago, the glory of international law enforcement praise instantly catapulting his fame to greater heights than ever seen before. And with his return, Edogawa Conan had gracefully taken his exit off-stage, taking the title of “KID Killer” with him.

KID hasn’t seen him in almost two years.

“I must say, I wasn’t expecting you to join me tonight, Meitantei.”

The curious lilt to KID’s tone does nothing to ease the tension in Shinichi’s shoulders.

“You came to me.”

A night breeze passes between them and only then does the famed detective seem to breathe, as if finally letting a heavy bag off his back.

_ He’s not wrong, _ KID acknowledges to himself, somewhat distantly.  _ We’re in Beika. _

“That’s true,” the phantom says airily. He walks towards Shinichi, noting the twitch of revamped alertness in his body, before moving past him to the roof access door.

Or more specifically, to sit on top of the concrete structure.

He holds a gloved hand down to the detective, who searches what little he can see of his face before silently taking the help. KID pulls him up to sit above the door in the spot next to him.

“You know, Tantei-kun...”

Shinichi hums curiously in reply, eyes cast to the sparkling cityscape below him. Once upon a time, he had cursed the fact that he was always stuck seeing the best views with the worst partner, but years have passed.

“Was it easy?” KID murmurs, forearm slung over a knee and chin resting against it. “Returning to your old life?”

Audition applications. University campuses. A poster in his room that flips around. Something he can’t leave behind. Searching for acceptance in people who could never understand. Not Aoko, not Saguru, not Akako.

Is that why he’s here now? Had he come to Beika, to  _ Kudou Shinichi,  _ to try one last person?

An exasperated sigh at his side snaps KID out of his swirling thoughts. “I had wondered why you were still moonlighting as a phantom thief, but to think that not even  _ you  _ know.”

KID straightens up at that, turning to the put-out detective at his side with lips slightly parted in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

Shinichi’s all-too-knowing gaze flickers over him once before turning back to the view. “Is that supposed to be a poker face?”

KID barely manages to conceal a flinch. He grits his teeth, knowing his expression must be much more somber and darker than it should on the job.

“Honestly…” Shinichi sighs, letting him slide. Then, with a deep breath, “Kaitou KID no longer has a reason to exist,” he announces.

Neither of them moves.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Shinichi folds his legs together before propping his chin up with an elbow on his knee. He looks and sounds bored, his tone flat and almost sarcastic. “The people who were targeting you - who targeted the first Kaitou KID too - aren’t around anymore. But you haven’t found what it is you’re looking for. Or maybe you have, but you’ve been doing this for so long now that you don’t even know how to  _ stop  _ anymore.”

KID only smiles. He lifts a large, violet gem up to the full moon. “Who knows,” he breathes out quietly.

“If you really want to know,” he begins, and KID blinks in surprise, having not expected anything else tonight. “No, it’s not easy.”

“...Present tense?”

Shinichi grins sardonically. “Did you think that just because  _ they  _ are gone, that just because I’ve got my body back, everything would go back to the way it was before?”

KID opens his mouth to reply, but Shinichi cuts him off.

“Because I did.”

Welcoming voices and tearful embraces. Awkward old friends. Politely distant smiles replacing the familiar grins he had known before. Lab test after lab test after lab test. A body that throbbed and pulsed as the heat grew unbearable.  _ Her _ broken goodbye across a crinkly phone speaker.

“Catching up was hell,” Shinichi finally says, tone light but expression heavier than a cinder block. “I clung to my life here - no, to _ Kudou Shinichi’s _ life - and forced myself to graduate high school at Teitan, even though it would’ve been far simpler to get a GED in America or something and then go to college.” KID watches as his shoulders slump and his eyelids lower. “Every connection I made as Conan was severed. I came back… expecting a 21-year-old Kudou Shinichi to fit in the space that 16-year-old Kudou Shinichi left behind.”

“That’s-”  _ crazy.  _ KID stops himself, mind racing. Shinichi had tried to force the wrong puzzle piece into the right slot.  _ “Why?” _

“Why did I come back?” Shinichi’s next exhale looks to KID as if he’d just sighed away the rest of his life’s happiness. His head tilts up the night sky, moonlight pouring in over his features. “I wonder…” Something about his smile, in this moment, will surely haunt KID’s dreams.

“What about-” KID licks his lips. “Mouri-chan?”

Shinichi simply smiles. Then, echoing KID’s earlier words, “Who knows,” he says.

“...Neither of us wants to answer the hard questions, huh.”

_ “You’re  _ the one conducting an interrogation here, Kaitou-san.” Shinichi stands then stuffs his hands into his pants pockets. He tilts his head towards the thief. “Did you find the answer you wanted?”

“I don’t know,” KID murmurs. “I don’t know.”

Kuroba Kaito just wants to be accepted.

But maybe he isn’t Kuroba Kaito anymore.


	2. Enchanted Audience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kudou Shinichi comes to a slow and painful realization.

Their bodies come together before their hearts do. 

Maybe it’s because of that conversation on the cold rooftop from a few months ago. Maybe it’s because of the way they both look at each other and see their own loneliness in one another. Maybe it’s the thrill of the chase, of crossing lines that shouldn’t be crossed, of playing with fire.

_ This, _ Shinichi decides darkly, hands pinned by his wrists far above his head and lips locked in a heated, frantic battle with KID’s own,  _ is most certainly playing with fire. _

KID has one gloved hand gently pressed over Shinichi’s eyes. After all, there’s only so much a monocle and the brim of a hat can do, especially up close. He knows the lips he’s nibbling on right now and the cheek he keeps brushing with his nose are  _ real  _ because he can’t sense any latex.

Shinichi breaks off first, panting lightly to catch his breath. When KID lets him go and hides his face in the crook of Shinichi’s shoulder, the detective can’t deny the thrill of satisfaction and pride that rushes through him at the way the magician is panting himself.

“We have to stop meeting like this, Tantei-kun,” KID murmurs teasingly, his tone all too pleased to suggest any seriousness behind his cliched phrase.

Shinichi’s eyes narrow. “As if you could bear it,” he huffs smugly, chin jutting out to hide his embarrassment. 

Flirtation isn’t new, but Shinichi actively participating in it certainly is. He doesn’t miss the way KID seems to preen even further at this revelation. Before all of…  _ this,  _ whatever “this” even is, KID would fire off mockingly flirtatious distractions at him, knowing they’d do nothing but irritate Shinichi and taking pleasure in that fact nonetheless. Now, Shinichi meets him phrase for phrase, as if he’d rather be caught dead than let himself be one-upped by the frivolous thief, even if he sees himself as the farthest thing from a romantic.

And so here they are, making out on rooftops just minutes before the police come barging in on them. Like they’re in some kind of crime-themed soap opera.

Their latest form of interaction, it seems.

When Shinichi returns the night’s coveted treasure to a bellowing, red-faced Nakamori-keibu, it’s with more than half a mind on the elusive thief and their recent… rendezvous. His uncertain step onto the streets of the city is the first of many on the long way home for the night with his head in the clouds, weaving through the chaotic aftermath of a Kaitou KID heist with the ease of practice.

Even now, he could still feel KID’s hand over his eyes.

The touch of soft gloves. The rustle of suit fabric. The stiff brim of that hat nudging his forehead. Moonlight slithering through the lashes of his closed eyelids.

Shinichi shivers.

_ Just what… are we doing? _

Surely they both must know how easy it would be for everything to fall apart. Just one “meeting” too long and they’d be witnessed by the entirety of the Kaitou KID Task Force. Or Shinichi could take advantage of KID’s apparent attraction to him and lead him into a trap.

Justice. What is justice?

He knows it’s something grey all over, but the answer can’t be seen clearly, even with those glasses he used to wear that were too large for his face.

But then he remembers soft murmurs by his ear. The press of eager, yet never forceful lips on his own. The tingling scent of smoke bombs, sharp, but softened by something sweeter underlying it. He wouldn’t mind sticking around long enough to find out what exactly that sweet smell is.

And then, as Shinichi trudges home along the sidewalk long after midnight, hands in his pockets and head low with dark office buildings and light 24-hour family restaurants and tall skyscrapers pressing in around him, he’s forced to admit it.

No matter how frustrating it is, no matter how much it hurts his pride, he’s forced to admit it.

He’s become another member of the Moonlight Magician’s enchanted audience.

And he hates himself for it.


	3. That Which We Call a Mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate," Kuroba Kaito murmurs to himself, quoting the Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" just 12 hours before fucking everything up.
> 
> Perfect memory has its quirks.

Sherlock Holmes was not, as much as a young Shinichi would disagree, the perfect detective the world often thought him to be. In his early teenage years, Shinichi tended to ignore whatever he deemed unnecessary in his quest to balance his gold idol on a feeble pedestal. 

Now, that is very much not the case.

When Shinichi first meets Kuroba Kaito out of the conveniently-marked comfort zone of a Kaitou KID heist, his heart hammers against his ribcage and pumps a scream through his veins.

_This is a mistake!_

Kudou Shinichi is no fool, and he knows that Kaitou KID most certainly isn’t one either. Every step the damned thief takes is meticulously calculated. Every move, every play, a part of a greater ploy. It is a requirement in the art of deception and in the logistics of manipulation that he develops great skill in predicting the movements and thoughts of the people around him.

KID, Shinichi concludes, must have read Sun Tzu’s _The Art of War._ And then decided it was time to take their little game to the next level.

“Kuroba Kaito, magician extraordinaire!” he cries, a sunny smile plastered over his face as he offers the rapidly-paling detective a rose.

Shinichi can see the crinkle of calculation in the corners of his eyes when he smiles.

He can also see Kaitou KID’s entire, _real,_ face.

Shinichi doesn’t move at first, too shell-shocked at this sudden development in the game he thought he knew the rules to. KID waits with a patience Shinichi doesn’t know him to have. Then, the Detective of the East, falsely renowned for his fearlessness in place of recklessness, embarrassingly enough, _trembles_ when he takes the sweet flower and carefully tucks it into his bag.

As his partly-functioning brain takes in the way KID’s lips relax _just so_ in satisfaction, Shinichi can’t help but repeat that scream in his mind over and over again. After all, a detective coming face to face with an internationally wanted criminal and not immediately cuffing and sending him on his merry way to jail is definitely a mistake, he reasons. Especially when it’s not even "for the greater good," as their previous allyship had been.

But they’ve already gone far beyond the line of allies.

And so, grappling with himself all the while, Shinichi lets things run their course.

Kuroba Kaito, he comes to understand quickly in their now regular interactions with one another, is like the sun.

He commands attention wherever he goes. Everyone he meets seems to automatically like him, and they are hopelessly weak to the pull of his presence. They obit around him like the rest of the planets orbit around the sun.

Friendly smiles, yellow roses, the attention of a crowd. The ability to make people question the existence of magic. The desire to be loved and adored by the audience.

Shinichi sees it all.

But he isn’t able to settle the war raging inside himself until he sees something else entirely.

It’s in the silence between Kuroba’s rambunctious laughs. In the universal moment of awe when he finishes a show. In deft hands and in the fluttering of dove wings.

Kuroba Kaito isn’t the sun at all, Shinichi realizes, his expression somber. “Kuroba Kaito” is just another disguise, now. The truth is that KID orbits around the earth. Always admired by those looking out, always looking in himself, never allowed to reach out and touch.

So when Shinichi sees him make that expression, like he’s _the moon,_ everything inside him quiets and leaves behind only a single memory of words on a page:

_“‘Because I made a blunder, my dear Watson - which is, I am afraid, a more common occurrence than anyone would think who knew me through your memoirs.’”_

They're all only human. Humans make choices, freely, every day, and sometimes they choose the wrong ones.

A mistake. What is a mistake?

It must be something most people wouldn’t decide to make so easily. But then Shinichi remembers they’re not “most people.”

And that some mistakes don't have to be seen as mistakes at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Chapter one, "Silver Blaze."


	4. Gaps

If the two of them are puzzle pieces too big to fit into the slots they’d once left behind, then there are also pieces too small to fit where they once belonged as well.

Like the way Mouri Ran looks so tiny in her ballgown of a wedding dress, its puff sleeves and flowing skirt swallowing her as if she’d fallen from a great height right into a white sheet in a cartoon.

Kaito stepped into the Kudou mansion that day, the day the invitation had come in the mail, with a chilling premonition crawling up his throat.

_“Ran’s getting married.”_

Shinichi’s voice had been so hollow.

Briefly, he wonders how Shinichi must feel right now, standing next to him and clapping politely in the crowd of guests. What is choking him? The stiff collar of his suit or the weight of what he’ll never have?

Later, when they step out for a breath of fresh air, Kaito leaning against the doors in a casual way to deter any uninvited guests from invading their little escapade, Shinichi watches his shoes silently.

Kaito is sure his own expression must match the one he’d made on that rooftop so many months ago now. Dark, somber. 

Resigned.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Shinichi finally spits out in a sudden burst of angry energy. “I don’t love her that way anymore. That was all a long time ago.”

Kaito says nothing, nor does he turn towards him. He simply continues his lazy lean in his impeccable suit and flicks his gaze towards Shinichi once before returning to the air in front of him.

“Up until a few months ago, I spent every year of my life thinking I was going to marry her. It’s just so… _surreal_ to see any other outcome.”

 _Before you came along,_ Kaito hears, and he doesn’t know whether he should feel proud of successfully wooing the detective or ashamed that he’s ruined for someone else what he himself couldn’t have with Aoko.

Mouri Ran’s puzzle piece is shrinking. Becoming smaller and smaller until it eventually blinks out of existence in the bigger picture that is Shinichi’s future.

Someone inside the venue laughs brightly as they walk past the doors. The sound is muffled, but sharp and painful to them nonetheless.

Kaito holds his hand.

“Whatever happens,” he murmurs, still giving Shinichi the space he needs by not looking at him. “No matter how out-of-control your life looks… I will always be with you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Shinichi’s shoulders tremble with a weak chuckle.

“Stupid thief, don’t you know making promises only hurts in the end?”

When they slip back into the reception hall, the no-longer-a-Mouri Ran, every part the beautiful June bride she’d dreamt of being as a young girl, smiles a small smile, knowingly, and takes Shinichi by the hand to gently pull him into a dance with her.

At its end, she presses a sweet, too sweet, kiss to his cheek and Kaito doesn’t miss the way Shinichi’s hand darts up to quickly wipe away a single tear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter before this was too happy for me lol


	5. These Tears Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This story ends where it first began; on the cold rooftops of Tokyo. 
> 
> Or rather, this is the end of the beginning.

Meitantei’s deductions, that first night of theirs on the rooftop, were not entirely correct.

_ “Kaitou KID no longer has a reason to exist.” _

“That’s not it, Tantei-kun,” KID murmurs aloud, lost in his thoughts.

The service door to the rooftop swings open with a quiet whine. Shinichi’s step onto the cement is confident, fearless. He’s never had anything to fear where Kaitou KID was involved.

“KID.”

A warm, clear gaze. Relaxed shoulders and creaseless brows. A slip into a sweet smile.

“Shinichi,” KID whispers, turning towards him.

The famous detective falters in his step at the sound of fear and uncertainty in his voice. His expression darkens, but his pace remains languid and seemingly unbothered.

_ So it’s time. _

KID sits on the ledge of the rooftop, legs dangling carelessly over the edge. Shinichi joins him, close enough to touch but far enough to breathe.

The detective slides his gaze over him before looking at the nightscape below them. Seeing these kinds of sights with the phantom thief at his side is pleasant, now.

“One year ago,” Shinichi begins, and KID knows he’s referring to that night when he’d first opened up to him. “I looked into all of Kaitou KID’s history. To date, there has not been a single case where you failed to return the jewels you’ve stolen.”

“So it would seem,” KID acknowledges hollowly.

“Is that about to change?”

The answer comes out in a harsh exhale and tightly closed fists,  _ “Yes.” _

Red.

Some of the most horrible things in his life are red. 

The hot, burning flames that’d taken his father from him. The pool of blood in his dreams that keeps growing and growing around an unresponsive detective. The glow of Pandora in the light of the full moon.

“I have to destroy it,” he spits out passionately. “Too many people have suffered because of this  _ stupid, stupid rock.” _

“Do you actually want to?”

“I don’t have a  _ choice!” _

And that is the first time Kaitou KID has ever raised his voice at Kudou Shinichi in earnest.

When he speaks next, the detective’s voice is low and sharp. “If you destroy that gem right now, you’ll stop being Kaitou KID.”

“I know,” he whispers desperately.

“You’re not just Kuroba Kaito anymore.”

“I know.”

“You’ll lose your identity again.”

“I know, Tantei-kun!” KID whirls on him and Shinichi flinches harshly at the sight of his face.

KID is crying.

Huge, fat tears are rolling down his cheeks and catching the moonlight. Glimmering. Overflowing.

They stare at each other for a moment, Shinichi’s expression trapped somewhere between surprise and fascination, and Kaito’s full of desperation… and something else?

“I  _ love _ Kaitou KID,” he cries, voice swollen and thick with emotion.

It’s love. That “something else” is love.

For a second, Shinichi’s face is full of righteous fury, and KID braces himself for rejection, for a fight. But the words that come out of his mouth are nothing like what he’s expecting.

“Then I’ll catch you,” he swears fervently. Surging forward, Shinichi takes hold of his face with both hands and stares into his eyes with such an intense heat that KID is lightheaded. “I’ll defeat you fair and square, during a heist, and then you’ll have no regrets.”

A trembling, gloved hand comes up to press against one of Shinichi’s own. His laugh is small, weak, and wet with tears. “What happened to not making promises, you idiot…”

Shinichi’s eyes narrow. “This isn’t a promise, it’s a fact. I decided I’d be the one to catch you from the beginning. Nothing has changed.”

KID searches his gaze with a trace of concern and surprise. “What about,” he licks his lips. “The police?”

Before his eyes, Shinichi’s cheeks gradually color a dark, pleasing pink. “What  _ about  _ them, stupid thief… I could’ve turned you in already.”

_ If I wanted to. _

KID closes his eyes, smiling weakly under the rolling waves of his emotions. “That’s so romantic, Shinichi,” he whispers.

“It’s  _ fact,”  _ he insists again, face reddening further. 

They fall silent, and KID allows the famous, not-so-lawful detective to gently wipe away his tears, removing his monocle in the process.

“I lied, earlier,” Shinichi admits quietly. “You won’t stop being Kaitou KID, but you’re not just Kuroba Kaito anymore either. You’re just… you,” he says lamely.

“And Kaitou KID will always be a huge part of me,” KID finishes for him.

“Yeah. Both.”

That night, the nightmare that is Pandora is destroyed.

In the quiet of his bedroom in Ekoda, Kaito passes up a watery grin at his father’s portrait. “I did it, dad… you can finally rest.”

But the story of Kaitou KID isn’t yet complete.

Three weeks later, Shinichi’s voice is teasing as Kaito writes the next heist note. “Don’t go easy on us now just because you  _ want _ to be captured.”

Kaito gives him his signature KID grin. “In your dreams, Meitantei.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, the great detective and the mysterious phantom thief live happily ever after, in their small world of cat and mouse, giving each other the pieces they're missing.
> 
> Thank you for reading this story. Your comments, kudos, bookmarks, and so on, have made me so happy. :))


End file.
